Next Year's Offense without Nic Moore

[gostangs]

alley oops are not going to happen as much when they have strong perimeter defense - and Tulane definitely committed to that. Give them credit for executing the only thing that had a chance to work on us.

[LA_Mustang]

Nic threw Ben a nice oop in the Tulane game.

[The Falcon]

Food poisoning makes sense. Everyone's timing was off -- bad passes and I don't believe they had a single alley oop.

They had several problems yesterday - 1) food poisoning 2) no full court practices between
ECU and TU game, 3) we had foul trouble 4) Nic was banged up and Ben sprained an ankle,
and 5) our passing was the worst I have ever seen. Our vaunted interior passing attack was
nowhere to be seen.

Shake played so relaxed I thought he was going to sleep. I used to
feel that way with Cunningham. I like his game and think he will be an all star but I will
be happy to seem him turn up the intensity when it is needed.

[Charleston Pony]

no question this team will miss Nic next year. As someone pointed out, it's not easy replacing the AAC Player of the Year but we will have several "combo" guards next year and I'm not overly concerned. Remains to be seen whether we will have someone who can be counted on at crunch time (like we have come to rely on Nic)

[hoopmanx]

I'm more worried about Nic's big shot making than I am running the O. To be honest, Nic is more a combo than Shake, so this isn't about having a pure PG, just a great lead guard. Straight up, my biggest concern is how we're utilizing Shake at point. He's a DDM type PG. We would have destroyed Tulane w/Shake at point, had we just said attack every play, get in the lane and figure it out. Instead, we become too set driven and let people stagnate on the perimeter. Whereas we pass exceptionally well from the high post/elbow, we shoot poorly from there. We're unstoppable, zone or man, when we get the personel that not only can drop it to the low post, they can can a 15ft jumper w/regularity. Our pick/pop will pick up alot next year

[JasonB]

It will take Shake some time to figure out when to take the ball and when to run the offense with LB. I'm not worried about it. More worried about whomever is going to have to come in and play other guard positions straight out of HS and whether they fit into the system and handle LB's expectations.

[AustinPerson]

Does UCONN miss the two guards who led them to the NCAA championship in Dallas a few years ago? YES!

[Nacho]

nic will go down as on of our all-time great players. people will be talking about him 30 years from now.

[hoopmanx]

It will take Shake some time to figure out when to take the ball and when to run the offense with LB. I'm not worried about it. More worried about whomever is going to have to come in and play other guard positions straight out of HS and whether they fit into the system and handle LB's expectations.

I'm not worried, so long as Emelogu is healthy. He moves right in next to Shake/Sterling. We get immeasurably better on D, get even tougher positionally, just need Ben E to find a way to generate points.

Versus the zone we saw at Tulane, Shake should have found the elbow himself, on most every possession, as opposed to dumping to a toothless Markus or Ben from that range.

[lollaperuna]

Not easy to replace a player that seems to thrive on pressure and can drain the game winner or take over a game and will his team to victory.

Too many games to count that we don't win without Nic.

[PoconoPony]

Nic brings an intensity, competitiveness, confidence coupled with experience that will be missed; however, I am confident we have those players ready to go. It is difficult for a frosh like Shake to assume such a leadership position on a team dominated by 3 outstanding seniors. Shake has demonstrated that he has the ability to step up when that becomes a more essential part of his role. I believe that we are in excellent shape for the foreseeable future on the perimeter. Our obvious need is the replacement of our bigs.

[sadderbudweiser]

It will take Shake some time to figure out when to take the ball and when to run the offense with LB. I'm not worried about it. More worried about whomever is going to have to come in and play other guard positions straight out of HS and whether they fit into the system and handle LB's expectations.

Jarrey and hopefully Ben Emelogou fill that niche. Our noobs will catch on but those two should be ready to fill at 2/3 behind Sterling and some form of Semi/Ben rotation when we go " big"

We've seen Ben do well at : done this year when he is teamed with Markus and Jordan.

It's 4-5 we need to fill.

[PonyFan32]

FWIW, I've been maintaining a little spreadsheet (for the more visually inclined among us) to keep straight what type of team we will be putting on the court year over year based on recruiting patterns. I've recently updated to remove Sed and Keith from future years, and I try to maintain track of how many scholarships we have to surrender to the penalty (assuming no scholarship reductions, which I think is unlikely).

My sheet also assumes everyone plays all 4 years and Emelogu returns.

SMU Year by Year.PNG (39.58 KiB) Viewed 1329 times

[sadderbudweiser]

FWIW, I've been maintaining a little spreadsheet (for the more visually inclined among us) to keep straight what type of team we will be putting on the court year over year based on recruiting patterns. I've recently updated to remove Sed and Keith from future years, and I try to maintain track of how many scholarships we have to surrender to the penalty (assuming no scholarship reductions, which I think is unlikely).

My sheet also assumes everyone plays all 4 years and Emelogu returns.

SMU Year by Year.PNG

This would be great on a sticky or at least updated regularly. Thanks!!

[MustangStealth]

FWIW, I've been maintaining a little spreadsheet (for the more visually inclined among us) to keep straight what type of team we will be putting on the court year over year based on recruiting patterns. I've recently updated to remove Sed and Keith from future years, and I try to maintain track of how many scholarships we have to surrender to the penalty (assuming no scholarship reductions, which I think is unlikely).

My sheet also assumes everyone plays all 4 years and Emelogu returns.

SMU Year by Year.PNG

This would be great on a sticky or at least updated regularly. Thanks!!

Hopefully there are no more changes requiring regular updates